7 Disasters Caused by Lightning

From gunpowder stockpiles to Star Wars memorabilia, it seems that nothing is safe from a lightning strike. Let's take a look back at some notable examples.

1. Lightning and Gunpowder Don't Mix

In August of 1769, lightning struck the tower of the Church of the Nazaire in Brescia, Italy. The current passed through the vaults where 207,000 pounds of gunpowder had been stored for safekeeping. You can tell where this is going. The aftermath destroyed a sixth of the city and killed 3,000 residents. The British parliament responded by passing two acts establishing standards for the manufacture and storage of gunpowder in private hands, eventually leading to an argument over how to best protect arsenal from lightning strikes.

2. Pan American Flight 214—December 8, 1963

The worst lightning strike death toll occurred when lightning hit a Pan American Boeing 707 en route from Puerto Rico to Philadelphia, killing all 81 on board. It's the only US airliner lost to lightning. Lightning struck the left wing of the 707 and hit the fuel vapor mixture stored in a reserve fuel tank, igniting it. The airplane exploded midair and crashed near Elkton, Maryland.

Flight 214 was in a holding pattern, awaiting approval to land at Philadelphia International Airport when it was struck. On fire, a large portion of the left wing separated in flight. The pilot managed to maintain control for a few seconds before the plane crashed. While examining the wreckage, officials noticed numerous spots where the metal surface and rivet heads appeared melted. Also, an irregular-shaped hole surrounded by fused metal indicated the presence of high heat.

Lightning charges can be hazardous to airplane fuel systems because lightning is able to ignite the fuel vapor in the tanks. As a result of this tragedy, the FAA insisted that all commercial jet liners be fitted with lightning discharge wicks. Still, on average, every commercial airliner is struck in flight at least once per year.

3. New York City Blackout

Chaos hit New York City in the summer of 1977 when lightning struck the Consolidated Edison electrical transmission line in northern Westchester County. The strike occurred near the ConEd power plant and as a result, major transmission lines were short-circuited. After an investigation, officials determined that several "massive lightning bolts" had struck the 345,000-volt power lines numerous times. The power was out for 25 hours, trapping people in subways and elevators, with violent looting, rioting and arson peppering the city.

4. Lightning in Space (sort of)

The Atlas-Centaur 67 was a 137-foot, $78 million rocket carrying $83 million of military communication equipment. Spinning out of control 51 seconds after liftoff, the rocket had to be destroyed immediately to prevent any off-course veering that might have endangered populated areas along the Florida coast. The flaming wreckage fell into the Atlantic Ocean three miles from Cape Canaveral.

Afterwards, videotape released by NASA showed a lightning bolt clearly flashing out of the rain clouds into which the Atlas-Centaur had vanished. Safety officials determined that at 14,250 feet the rocket disappeared into the clouds, losing control and disrupting all communications. Lightning experts said that a rocket penetrating a storm cloud could attract electrical charges much like a tree or a tall building, such as the Empire State Building. NASA officials blamed the Air Force for shoddy weather reports, and defended their decision to launch a rocket into cloudy skies.

This was not the first time lightning and NASA butted heads. On November 14, 1969, the Apollo 12 was struck thirty seconds into liftoff. Systems failed temporarily, but the astronauts managed to regain control.

5. The Yellowstone Fires—Summer of 1988

A combination of drought, high winds, and multiple lightning strikes caused one of the largest fire seasons in Yellowstone history. Fires affected 36% of the park (approx. 793,800 acres)—nine fires because of human error, 42 by lightning. 300 mammals perished (mostly elk). Yellowstone residents, firefighters, and tourists remember the harrowing months of flames licking above the treetops, evacuations, closed roads, and hillsides glowing with embers. Dubbed "Black Saturday," August 20 marked the single most active fire day of the 1988 season. Several Rangers and visitors found themselves stranded at the visitor center, the exit paths blocked by downed trees and 100 foot tall windblown flames.

Even ten years later, hikers still had to take caution, especially on windy days, for falling dead trees burned in the 1988 fires. As of 2008, new trees are growing in thick and tall, covering the views opened up by the fires.

6. Lightning vs. The Force

In 2005, Graham Duck returned to his home in Loftus to find that his house had been struck by lightning during a storm that ravaged part of northern England. The lightning hit the chimney, traveled down a wall, and set fire to the loft. The lightning strike also destroyed his Â£20,000 collection of Star Wars toys and memorabilia, which he had stored in the loft, close to where the lightning hit the roof. Mr. Duck called the collection irreplaceable and priceless.

7. Lightning: Cure or Cause?

70% of people who get hit by lightning survive—including many golfers, whose constant presence in open spaces leaves them vulnerable. Victims often claim to have undergone physical changes, frustrating incredulous lawyers who think they want simply to win lawsuits or workers' compensation. Survivors claim that after being struck, they developed stutters, impotence, memory loss, depression, blurred vision, and poor hearing. Fair enough after having electricity surge through your body. Some bizarre survivor stories include:

Tony Cicori, a surgeon who suddenly became obsessed with classical piano after being struck by lightning.
*
Roy Sullivan, a former park ranger, holds the Guinness Records not only for being struck the most—seven times—but surviving them all! He kind of debunks the whole "lightning never strikes the same place twice" thing. Sadly, Sullivan committed suicide when he was 71.
*
Harold Deal said he stopped feeling cold after he was struck by lightning in 1969. He regularly wears shorts in snowstorms and has photos to prove it.
*
Edwin Robinson claims a lightning bolt returned his eyesight, which he'd lost in a car accident 10 years earlier.

1. ON SCIENCE

2. ON NASA FUNDING

"As a fraction of your tax dollar today, what is the total cost of all spaceborne telescopes, planetary probes, the rovers on Mars, the International Space Station, the space shuttle, telescopes yet to orbit, and missions yet to fly?' Answer: one-half of one percent of each tax dollar. Half a penny. I’d prefer it were more: perhaps two cents on the dollar. Even during the storied Apollo era, peak NASA spending amounted to little more than four cents on the tax dollar." —From Space Chronicles

3. ON GOD AND HURRICANES

"Once upon a time, people identified the god Neptune as the source of storms at sea. Today we call these storms hurricanes ... The only people who still call hurricanes acts of God are the people who write insurance forms."—From Death by Black Hole

4. ON THE BENEFITS OF TECHNOLOGY INVENTED FOR USE IN SPACE

"Countless women are alive today because of ideas stimulated by a design flaw in the Hubble Space Telescope." (Editor's note: technology used to repair the Hubble Space Telescope's optical problems led to improved technology for breast cancer detection.)—From Space Chronicles

5. ON THE DEMOTION OF PLUTO FROM PLANET STATUS

PBS

"I knew Pluto was popular among elementary schoolkids, but I had no idea they would mobilize into a 'Save Pluto' campaign. I now have a drawer full of hate letters from hundreds of elementary schoolchildren (with supportive cover letters from their science teachers) pleading with me to reverse my stance on Pluto. The file includes a photograph of the entire third grade of a school posing on their front steps and holding up a banner proclaiming, 'Dr. Tyson—Pluto is a Planet!'"—From The Sky Is Not the Limit

6. ON JAMES CAMERON'S TITANIC

"In [Titanic], the stars above the ship bear no correspondence to any constellations in a real sky. Worse yet, while the heroine bobs ... we are treated to her view of this Hollywood sky—one where the stars on the right half of the scene trace the mirror image of the stars in the left half. How lazy can you get?"—From Death by Black Hole

7. ON DEATH BY ASTEROID

"On Friday the 13th, April 2029, an asteroid large enough to fill the Rose Bowl as though it were an egg cup will fly so close to Earth that it will dip below the altitude of our communication satellites. We did not name this asteroid Bambi. Instead, we named it Apophis, after the Egyptian god of darkness and death." —From Space Chronicles

8. ON THE MOTIVATIONS BEHIND AMERICA'S MOONSHOT

"[L]et us not fool ourselves into thinking we went to the Moon because we are pioneers, or discoverers, or adventurers. We went to the Moon because it was the militaristically expedient thing to do."—From The Sky Is Not the Limit

9. ON INTELLIGENT LIFE (OR THE LACK THEREOF)

Perhaps we've never been visited by aliens because they have looked upon Earth and decided there's no sign of intelligent life.
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/n/neildegras615117.html

Perhaps we've never been visited by aliens because they have looked upon Earth and decided there's no sign of intelligent life.
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/n/neildegras615117.html

"Perhaps we've never been visited by aliens because they have looked upon Earth and decided there's no sign of intelligent life."

10. PRACTICAL ADVICE IN THE EVENT OF ALIEN CONTACT

Universal Studios

"[I]f an alien lands on your front lawn and extends an appendage as a gesture of greeting, before you get friendly, toss it an eightball. If the appendage explodes, then the alien was probably made of antimatter. If not, then you can proceed to take it to your leader."—From Death by Black Hole

More than 30 years ago, Apple defined the Super Bowl commercial as a cultural phenomenon. Prior to Super Bowl XVIII, nobody watched the game "just for the commercials"—but one epic TV spot, directed by sci-fi legend Ridley Scott, changed all that. Read on for the inside story of the commercial that rocked the world of advertising, even though Apple's Board of Directors didn't want to run it at all.

THE AD

If you haven't seen it, here's a fuzzy YouTube version:

"WHY 1984 WON'T BE LIKE 1984"

The tagline "Why 1984 Won't Be Like '1984'" references George Orwell's 1949 novel 1984, which envisioned a dystopian future, controlled by a televised "Big Brother." The tagline was written by Brent Thomas and Steve Hayden of the ad firm Chiat\Day in 1982, and the pair tried to sell it to various companies (including Apple, for the Apple II computer) but were turned down repeatedly. When Steve Jobs heard the pitch in 1983, he was sold—he saw the Macintosh as a "revolutionary" product, and wanted advertising to match. Jobs saw IBM as Big Brother, and wanted to position Apple as the world's last chance to escape IBM's domination of the personal computer industry. The Mac was scheduled to launch in late January of 1984, a week after the Super Bowl. IBM already held the nickname "Big Blue," so the parallels, at least to Jobs, were too delicious to miss.

Thomas and Hayden wrote up the story of the ad: we see a world of mind-controlled, shuffling men all in gray, staring at a video screen showing the face of Big Brother droning on about "information purification directives." A lone woman clad in vibrant red shorts and a white tank-top (bearing a Mac logo) runs from riot police, dashing up an aisle towards Big Brother. Just before being snatched by the police, she flings a sledgehammer at Big Brother's screen, smashing him just after he intones "We shall prevail!" Big Brother's destruction frees the minds of the throng, who quite literally see the light, flooding their faces now that the screen is gone. A mere eight seconds before the one-minute ad concludes, a narrator briefly mentions the word "Macintosh," in a restatement of that original tagline: "On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you'll see why 1984 won't be like '1984.'" An Apple logo is shown, and then we're out—back to the game.

"... It is now 1984. It appears IBM wants it all. Apple is perceived to be the only hope to offer IBM a run for its money. Dealers, initially welcoming IBM with open arms, now fear an IBM-dominated and -controlled future. They are increasingly turning back to Apple as the only force that can ensure their future freedom. IBM wants it all and is aiming its guns on its last obstacle to industry control: Apple. Will Big Blue dominate the entire computer industry? The entire information age? Was George Orwell right about 1984?"

After seeing the ad for the first time, the Apple audience totally freaked out (jump to about the 5-minute mark to witness the riotous cheering).

SKINHEADS, A DISCUS THROWER, AND A SCI-FI DIRECTOR

Chiat\Day hired Ridley Scott, whose 1982 sci-fi film Blade Runner had the dystopian tone they were looking for (and Alien wasn't so bad either). Scott filmed the ad in London, using actual skinheads playing the mute bald men—they were paid $125 a day to sit and stare at Big Brother; those who still had hair were paid to shave their heads for the shoot. Anya Major, a discus thrower and actress, was cast as the woman with the sledgehammer largely because she was actually capable of wielding the thing.

Mac programmer Andy Hertzfeld wrote an Apple II program "to flash impressive looking numbers and graphs on [Big Brother's] screen," but it's unclear whether his program was used for the final film. The ad cost a shocking $900,000 to film, plus Apple booked two premium slots during the Super Bowl to air it—carrying an airtime cost of more than $1 million.

WHAT EXECUTIVES AT APPLE THOUGHT

Although Jobs and his marketing team (plus the assembled throng at his 1983 internal presentation) loved the ad, Apple's Board of Directors hated it. After seeing the ad for the first time, board member Mike Markkula suggested that Chiat\Day be fired, and the remainder of the board were similarly unimpressed. Then-CEO John Sculley recalled the reaction after the ad was screened for the group: "The others just looked at each other, dazed expressions on their faces ... Most of them felt it was the worst commercial they had ever seen. Not a single outside board member liked it." Sculley instructed Chiat\Day to sell off the Super Bowl airtime they had purchased, but Chiat\Day principal Jay Chiat quietly resisted. Chiat had purchased two slots—a 60-second slot in the third quarter to show the full ad, plus a 30-second slot later on to repeat an edited-down version. Chiat sold only the 30-second slot and claimed it was too late to sell the longer one. By disobeying his client's instructions, Chiat cemented Apple's place in advertising history.

When Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak heard that the ad was in trouble, he offered to pony up half the airtime costs himself, saying, "I asked how much it was going to cost, and [Steve Jobs] told me $800,000. I said, 'Well, I'll pay half of it if you will.' I figured it was a problem with the company justifying the expenditure. I thought an ad that was so great a piece of science fiction should have its chance to be seen."

But Woz didn't have to shell out the money; the executive team finally decided to run a 100-day advertising extravaganza for the Mac's launch, starting with the Super Bowl ad—after all, they had already paid to shoot it and were stuck with the airtime.

WHAT EVERYBODY ELSE THOUGHT

When the ad aired, controversy erupted—viewers either loved or hated the ad, and it spurred a wave of media coverage that involved news shows replaying the ad as part of covering it, leading to estimates of an additional $5 million in "free" airtime for the ad. All three national networks, plus countless local markets, ran news stories about the ad. "1984" become a cultural event, and served as a blueprint for future Apple product launches. The marketing logic was brilliantly simple: create an ad campaign that sparked controversy (for example, by insinuating that IBM was like Big Brother), and the media will cover your launch for free, amplifying the message.

The full ad famously ran once during the Super Bowl XVIII (on January 22, 1984), but it also ran the month prior—on December 31, 1983, TV station operator Tom Frank ran the ad on KMVT at the last possible time slot before midnight, in order to qualify for 1983's advertising awards.* (Any awards the ad won would mean more media coverage.) Apple paid to screen the ad in movie theaters before movie trailers, further heightening anticipation for the Mac launch. In addition to all that, the 30-second version was aired across the country after its debut on the Super Bowl.

Chiat\Day adman Steve Hayden recalled: "We ran a 30- second version of '1984' in the top 10 U.S. markets, plus, in an admittedly childish move, in an 11th market—Boca Raton, Florida, headquarters for IBM's PC division." Mac team member Andy Hertzfeld ended his remembrance of the ad by saying:

"A week after the Macintosh launch, Apple held its January board meeting. The Macintosh executive staff was invited to attend, not knowing what to expect. When the Mac people entered the room, everyone on the board rose and gave them a standing ovation, acknowledging that they were wrong about the commercial and congratulating the team for pulling off a fantastic launch.

Chiat\Day wanted the commercial to qualify for upcoming advertising awards, so they ran it once at 1 AM at a small television station in Twin Falls, Idaho, KMVT, on December 15, 1983 [incorrect; see below for an update on this -ed]. And sure enough it won just about every possible award, including best commercial of the decade. Twenty years later it's considered one of the most memorable television commercials ever made."

THE AWFUL 1985 FOLLOW-UP

A year later, Apple again employed Chiat\Day to make a blockbuster ad for their Macintosh Office product line, which was basically a file server, networking gear, and a laser printer. Directed by Ridley Scott's brother Tony, the new ad was called "Lemmings," and featured blindfolded businesspeople whistling an out-of-tune version of Snow White's "Heigh-Ho" as they followed each other off a cliff (referencing the myth of lemming suicide).

Jobs and Sculley didn't like the ad, but Chiat\Day convinced them to run it, pointing out that the board hadn't liked the last ad either. But unlike the rousing, empowering message of the "1984" ad, "Lemmings" directly insulted business customers who had already bought IBM computers. It was also weirdly boring—when it was aired at the Super Bowl (with Jobs and Sculley in attendance), nobody really reacted. The ad was a flop, and Apple even proposed running a printed apology in TheWall Street Journal. Jay Chiat shot back, saying that if Apple apologized, Chiat would buy an ad on the next page, apologizing for the apology. It was a mess:

20-YEAR ANNIVERSARY

In 2004, the ad was updated for the launch of the iPod. The only change was that the woman with the hammer was now listening to an iPod, which remained clipped to her belt as she ran. You can watch that version too:

FURTHER READING

Check out Mac team member Andy Hertzfeld's excellent first-person account of the ad. A similar account (but with more from Jobs's point of view) can found in the Steve Jobs biography, and an even more in-depth account is in The Mac Bathroom Reader. The Mac Bathroom Reader is out of print; you can read an excerpt online, including QuickTime movies of the two versions of the ad, plus a behind-the-scenes video. Finally, you might enjoy this 2004 USA Today article about the ad, pointing out that ads for other computers (including Atari, Radio Shack, and IBM's new PCjr) also ran during that Super Bowl.

* = A Note on the Airing in 1983

Update: Thanks to Tom Frank for writing in to correct my earlier mis-statement about the first air date of this commercial. As you can see in his comment below, Hertzfeld's comments above (and the dates cited in other accounts I've seen) are incorrect. Stay tuned for an upcoming interview with Frank, in which we discuss what it was like running both "1984" and "Lemmings" before they were on the Super Bowl!